sign the faculty open letter

On April 8th 2016, an open letter of faculty support was released with 102 faculty signatories spanning 10 of Penn's 12 schools. One of the most important ways to aid our campaign is by signing your name to the letter below. ​

Penn Faculty Members: Add Your Name to the Open Letter

Dear President Amy Gutmann and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, We, the undersigned faculty, write in favor of investing Penn’s endowment in a more ethical, sustainable, and rational manner by removing investments from the fossil fuel industry. Funding fossil fuel companies ultimately funds climate change. To limit climate change so as to prevent grave adverse effects, we must limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Scientific consensus indicates that to stay within this 2-degree margin, we must cap carbon dioxide emissions at 394 gigatons between now and 2050.¹ The fossil fuel industry, however, owns enough coal, oil, and gas reserves to produce 2860 gigatons of carbon dioxide.² These corporations’ business models make them incompatible with a stable climate.

The urgent need for climate action cannot be overstated. Global reliance on the burning of fossil fuels has already caused sea level rises, heat waves, and extreme weather events unprecedented in recorded human history. Climate change, moreover, disadvantages those who live in poverty, in particular those in developing countries. These people often lack the resources necessary to adapt to climate changes, and typically contribute fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The World Health Organization estimated in 2004 that climate change causes 166,000 deaths worldwide each year.³ As the Lancet Commissions urged in their report from June of this year, "The effects of climate change are being felt today, and future projections represent an unacceptably high and potentially catastrophic risk to human health."⁴ These harmful effects of climate change will only worsen if we continue forward on the path we are on.While there are many sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the fossil fuel industry is particularly culpable for perpetuating the climate crisis. Writing in the New York Times and elsewhere, Harvard professor Dr. Naomi Oreskes and others have drawn attention to major oil companies’ practices of deception.⁵ Fossil fuel corporations, for whom the extraction of these fuels is their primary business, have demonstrated resistance to changing their practices by exerting political influence to block climate action. The social injuries attributable to these companies go beyond their contributions to climate change: a 2010 report from the Clean Air Task Force found that U.S. coal power plants emit pollutants which result in an estimated 9,700 hospitalizations each year.⁶ Philadelphia’s own Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery releases over 350 tons of hazardous air pollutants per year.⁷ Penn has already demonstrated dedication to ending reliance on this system of destructive energy through the Climate Action Plan and associated environmental research such as that conducted at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. We applaud those efforts, and aim to build on them by calling for greater action. We believe that in the face of the fossil fuel industry’s practices only a strategy of divestment is appropriate for the continued moral standing of the university. Specifically, we endorse Fossil Free Penn’s proposal that the University of Pennsylvania:

Stop new investments in the fossil fuel industry.

Remove direct and commingled holdings in the top 200 fossil fuel companies within 5 years.

Reinvest a portion of the extricated funds into clean energy assets.

All aspects of this proposal are necessary due to the harm caused by the coal, oil, and gas industries and the need for a shift in energy toward renewable forms. Divestment is an act of ethical responsibility and a protest against current practices that cannot be altered as quickly or effectively by other means. The aim of divestment is not to lower the financial value of fossil fuel company shares but instead to exert the university’s moral and intellectual weight against the economic and political agenda of the fossil fuel industry. The most comprehensive study of divestment to date, published by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, indicates that past divestment strategies forced changes in corporate behavior, government regulation, legal statutes, and even share prices, that would not otherwise have happened.⁸ Through divesting, Penn would lead the academic world in the call for a better future for its students. Moreover, in addition to being morally responsible, there is no unequivocal financial evidence that demonstrates that divestment would damage the university or its endowment. Several independent studies conducted by MSCI,⁹ Impax Asset Management,¹⁰ and Advisor partners,¹¹ who together manage over $75 billion in assets, conclude that portfolios free of fossil fuel companies perform equally or even outperform those that are invested in fossil fuels. In recognition of the rational demand for fossil free investments, investment managers now offer fossil free options to investors,¹² making fossil fuel divestment a reasonable option for both direct and commingled funds. Shareholder engagement as a tactic to change the fossil fuel industry’s practices has clearly failed. The British environmentalist Jonathan Porritt recently said that after years of working with Shell and BP, he “came to the conclusion that it was impossible for today’s oil and gas majors to adapt in a timely and intelligent way to the imperative of radical decarbonisation.”¹³ To encourage an energy transition, which we know is necessary for an end to or serious reduction in fossil fuel usage, direct reinvestment in renewable energy projects offers a much better path than engagement because it maximizes the social impact of our endowment’s investments. Growing popular and institutional support for divestment further bolsters the tactic’s legitimacy. In February 2015, undergraduates voted overwhelmingly in favor of fossil fuel divestment in a student referendum. Over 30 colleges and universities have divested their endowments from all or part of the fossil fuel industry, including Georgetown, Stanford, Pitzer, and Syracuse. Numerous other institutions have also divested; these include the Church of England, Seattle’s city pension fund, and the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth, includes divestment as a legitimate tactic, urging institutions to “be the first mover. Use smart due diligence. Rethink what fiduciary responsibility means in this changing world.” He is one of many authorities to advocate fossil fuel divestment, including President Obama, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Penn must join these institutions and public figures to stand on the right side of history as part of a global move toward climate solutions. ​With all these things in mind, it is time for Penn to act. It seems counterintuitive to educate intelligent youth so that they may achieve the brightest possible future while simultaneously investing in the destruction of that future. Knowing that sea levels are rising, extreme weather events are becoming stronger and more frequent, and fossil fuel pollution is damaging human health worldwide, how can Penn not answer these alarm bells threatening the prospects of its students? We stand united in calling upon the University Council to bring Fossil Free Penn’s proposal before the trustees, and call upon the trustees to act in a timely manner to approve divestment and reinvestment.

104. Caroline Connolly Senior Lecturer of PsychologyAssociate Director of Undergraduate Studies in Psychology School of Arts and Sciences ​105. Abraham A. GibsonLecturer, Department of History and Sociology of ScienceSchool of Arts and Sciences

106. Alison SweeneyAssistant Professor of Physics and AstronomySchool of Arts and Sciences

107. Christina FreiExecutive Director of Language Instruction School of Arts and SciencesAdjunct Associate Professor of EducationGraduate School of Education

108. Bekir Harun KüçükAssistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science​School of Arts and Sciences

132. John CrockerProfessor of Chemical and Biomolecular EngineeringSchool of Engineering and Applied Science

133. James AguirreAssociate Professor of Physics and AstronomySchool of Arts and Sciences

134. Vinayak MathurLecturer in the Department of BiologySchool of Arts and Sciences

*The first 100 signatures appear in alphabetical order, and signatures thereafter appear in the order signed. ​Signatures are updated on a weekly basis. Please email us if you believe there is any error with your signature.​

Fossil Free Penn seeks to include all members of the Penn community in this campaign.If you are faculty or (non-faculty) staff and would like to be involved, please email fossilfreepenn@gmail.com.​